


take me to the feeling

by sowish



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Album fic, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Unrequited Love, Yvesoul - Freeform, also the mature stuff is implied, but is it ?!? !?, but one friend is in love :(, carly rae jepsen deserves the world for releasing emotion (2015), feels like an indie film about college kids growing up and falling in love, im not abt to write that stuff when it concerns minors, lipseul - Freeform, or at least that's what i aimed for, sum recreational weed and alcohol, there's some side pairings but dont expect much!!, tldr it's about idiots falling in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sowish/pseuds/sowish
Summary: Whether it's falling in love under dim yellow lights or blindly in the dark, it's always Hyunjin for Heejin.





	take me to the feeling

**Author's Note:**

> emotion is That Album and i could send all of the praise in the world for it and it still wouldn't be enough. i can only hope that i measure up to the feelings and interpretations this album gave me.
> 
> if it weren't for me seeing crj in show, i don't think this piece would exist. i'm so glad that i went, not only for the memories, but also for the pleasure that i had writing this :D
> 
> i have a playlist available if you want to listen to it throughout the piece and they are basically the songs that determined the scenes that i wrote and what happened in them. (although if you haven't experienced the glory of the album before and wanna listen to emotion as a whole the way it should be listened to, i recommend listening to the album first before going to my playlist as i mix the tracklist up to suit my story.)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsXAs93iDrKwUtGK4ISphwIjy1FN0iI8
> 
> also the west coast american in me kinda jus.. . .. .screams in this.
> 
> anyway, enjoy :D

Jinsol is a bundle of hope and excitement when she flutters her eyelashes, furrows her eyebrows into slants, and pouts deep enough for the coldest heart to turn into a mushy pile of fluff and softness.

“Heekkie, please come! I want you to meet Sooyoung and the rest of her friends. Chaewon and Yerim are coming so you’ll have someone with you at all times!”

(Jinsol and Sooyoung had started dating in a mess of events beginning with Jinsol accidentally spilling her coffee over the girl’s Geology study guide in the bliss of a quiet courtyard. Becoming a mess of apologies and embarrassment, Jinsol trips over her words. (And normally, Sooyoung wouldn’t be above losing her mind because it took her too many gruelling hours writing out the damn study guide, but Jinsol has a certain charm to her—even if she is a bumbling and stuttering mess of words.) Ever so cool, Sooyoung brushes the espresso smelling paper away, ink bled and illegible, for an exchange of a coffee date and having Jinsol quiz her on the very material that got washed away.

And Jinsol wasn’t going to say no—she had spilled her coffee in her own infatuation anyway. Sooyoung had ran her hand through her hair while taking a breath and stretching to ease her muscles, tense from being hunched over. If it weren’t for the sliver of skin that peeked under her crop top and the girl’s well-defined abdominal muscles, Jinsol would have been just fine. Except, Jinsol never fared well under hazy dreams of attraction and lost focus. Reaching for her coffee and horribly miscalculating its position with her eyes trained on the girl diagonal to her, knocking over her cup of coffee was only inevitable.)

“And I promise that as soon as you wanna leave, you can go, but please give them a chance? They’re really amazing and funny and I wouldn’t want you to meet them if I wasn’t sure you’d like them!”

There is a validity in what Jinsol reasons. Heejin never liked wasting her time on people that wasn’t worth her effort of knowing—and plus, Jinsol’s pout and sad eyes are nearly impossible to refuse.

Unfolding her arms, closing her eyes in resignation, and sighing, Heejin can only give in, “Fine, I’ll go. But, if I don’t like them, you’re paying for my food for the next two weeks.”

Jinsol brightens up like a lightbulb flickering on and it’s impossible for Heejin to not smile at the contagious display of her friend’s happiness, “I promise you’ll like them, Heejin!”

And it’s not like Heejin had a doubt that Jinsol judged them wrongly—that girl has an affinity for magnetizing all of the right people. If she liked Sooyoung’s friends, then they should be decent enough for Heejin to tolerate. Even if Heejin would prefer to stay in her room, buried under her blankets, snuggling her Stitch plushie, and watching _Naruto_ , she wouldn’t like to refuse the bridge Jinsol was extending between her girlfriend and her friends. Seeing the lights dim out from Jinsol’s eyes would be one of the last things Heejin would ever choose to do—the younger girl would much rather undergo semesters of mind-numbingly uneventful four-hour classes before even considering disappointing her friend.

(Little does Heejin know that if anything, she will have to owe Jinsol a lifetime supply of free meals for the people that she will be introducing her to.)

~

Sooyoung’s apartment is comfy—not too large, but definitely not too small that the air begins to feel suffocating.

Pictures aren’t enough to capture the glittering wonder of Sooyoung’s smile, no matter how hard Jinsol tries in each and every shot she takes. Heejin could see it from a mile away, could see how Jinsol and Sooyoung’s eyes flutter in the empty spaces of the room to find each other’s, could see with only a mere observation how much they meant to each other. (Heejin knows that she would reach into the deepest core of her efforts to like this girl. If Jinsol looks at her so affectionately, if Sooyoung is everything that Jinsol said, then Heejin makes a promise to herself to not be an obstacle that eases their relationship to thorns—if Jinsol loves Sooyoung, Heejin will make the effort to find everything that there is to love about Sooyoung too.)

Exchanging formalities is normally an awkward and forced affair, but Sooyoung wears her smile the way she wears her heart on her sleeve and everything to the way her eyes glimmer to how she extends a hand to Heejin, Chaewon, and Yerim is natural and genuine. Quickly, Heejin finds that she doesn’t need to search hard to find the things that are to like about Sooyoung—she is just innately likeable.

Heejin isn’t normally a fan of beer—she thinks that it just tastes like piss water—but to ease any of her trepidation and to get her out of her shell, Heejin is the first to crack open the tab of a pink can. And as it turns out, Sooyoung has a pretty decent taste in alcohol. Pleasantly flavored like watermelons, the sweetness of the fruit flavor is enough to balance out the slight bitterness of alcohol. Easily, Heejin finishes off the can in the first thirty minutes of being there. It’s not enough to get her tipsy, but it’s enough to make her feel more comfortable in a new place—an enjoyable buzz.

Even when Sooyoung offers them her weed pen and pipes, Heejin doesn’t feel as critical as she normally would about smoking—perhaps it’s because she has become more tolerable of it through Chaewon’s recreational usage of it or it’s because she understands that weed isn’t the worst thing in the world to ease the stress of being college students struggling to keep themselves afloat.

Amidst the smoke of marijuana and the fizzy carbonation of beer sliding down her throat, the dimmed yellow lighting casting its faint glow in Sooyoung’s living room is warm. It feels a lot like being cocooned in a comfortable hug. Even when the door to Sooyoung’s apartment opens, the sanctity of her living room is not ruined.

“Started the party without us, Sooyoung?”

Lazily with a pipe in her hands and red eyes, Sooyoung leans her head on Jinsol’s shoulder and she lightly drawls out her words like the smoke floating around them, “You were taking forever, Hyunjin. And plus, it’s all about making our guests comfortable, right?”

When Heejin turns her head to the direction of the new voice, she doesn’t know if it’s the dim lighting or the effects of her third can of beer that makes the girl setting a bag of groceries on the kitchen table look like the coming of a fucking glowing angel. Her presence alone is enough for the two girls beside her to dim into the background. The girl’s voice sounds like a sweet melody beautifully wrapped in pink velvety silk—it glides through the air and it becomes the only noise Heejin wants to hear for the rest of her life.

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right. Anyway, I bought everything you forgot.”

“Punch?”

One of the girls that Heejin subconsciously pushed to the background speaks up, “Check.”

“Vodka?”

The second girl shakes the clear bottle, “Check.”

“Munchies?”

The girl in Heejin’s foreground tosses several bags of chips into the living room and starts working on opening the bottle of punch, “Triple check.”

When Sooyoung’s lips fall into an easy smile and her lids close, Jinsol kisses her forehead and it makes her melt even more into her embrace.

“Did you phone for pizza?”

Sooyoung only hums confirmation before taking a drag of the pipe in her hands and gently pulling Jinsol in by her neck, smoke billowing out from her soft lips and disappearing behind Jinsol’s.

When Jinsol kisses her after inhaling the smoke, it’s intimate and comfortable and safe—everything she loves about being with Sooyoung.

Dozing away and floating between the intricacies of the present and cognitive dissociation, Chaewon’s red eyes just begin to attempt to focus on the new girl in the room. With a pipe in her hands, she blearily looks beside her, the lids of her eyes heavy, “You sure you don’t want any?”

Yerim shakes her head and runs her hand through Chaewon’s hair, the other girl’s eyes dragging to a close at the addicting feeling, “I’m okay, thank you though.” The blonde only hums and nuzzles into the hand caressing her hair. Already knowing Heejin’s aversion to smoking, Chaewon skips on asking her and instead hooks her pinky through Heejin’s that was resting in her lap.

Letting the other girls shuffling around in the kitchen fade into the back, Heejin watches the girl set the other snacks and beverages on the kitchen counter. She finds it difficult to tear her eyes away from her. When the girl looks up, feeling the presence of someone’s eyes on her, finding Heejin’s soft and observant gaze trained on her does little to threaten or off-put her. In truth, her mellow eyes prompts a subconscious smile to tug at her lips. The lazy but kind smile that Heejin projects back to the one the other girl shows feels a lot like the twinkling of fairy lights in a dark room.

Pouring her own drink and raising her cup in invitation, she adds another cup to the three already lined up when Heejin nods at her in confirmation. Using a sharpie and decorating her cup with a picture, she even takes to decorating Heejin’s and the other two next to hers. Handing the cup with a rough stencil of a bunny figure to her, Heejin barely catches the drawing of a cat on the other girl’s cup.

“I’m Hyunjin.”

(An ordinary name shouldn’t sound like the most ingenious thing Heejin has ever heard, but when Hyunjin speaks, Heejin thinks that anything she could ever say would be the most gravitating and interesting thing she could hear in her entire lifetime.)

Grasping the hand extended to her in a handshake, Heejin’s voice comes out low and almost rumbling. (Usually, she pays attention to the natural dip of her voice to speak with a higher intonation for reasons that Heejin only deems as nuanced insecurity.) Too swept away in her fascination and wonder, Heejin surprises herself when she hears the deepness of her voice, “I’m Heejin; it’s nice to meet you.” Clearing her throat and reminding herself to pay attention to how she speaks, Heejin feels her cheeks dust a light pink undetectable under the dim lighting of the room.

Holding on for too long, Heejin almost flinches when Hyunjin lets go and redirects her attention to the two girls besides Heejin. Introducing herself to Chaewon and Yerim, Heejin can only zero in on the little dimple that shows when she smiles big enough for her sharp canines to show—it’s effortlessly charming much like how she exudes a natural confidence and coolness. 

When the other two girls come into the living room, looking at their intertwined hands, Heejin briefly entertains the idea of a romance between the two but quickly brushes it off. When they introduce themselves to her, Heejin makes sure to note that the girl with shorter hair is named Haseul and the girl with a relaxed smile is named Jungeun.

Having drunk enough to be pleasantly tipsy and close to drunkenness, Heejin doesn’t feel her usual hesitation when she sits in a circle with everyone, an empty bottle at the center of it. It’s been a while since she has felt like a teenager stuck in the craze of growing up, forcing herself into uncomfortable party circles, and following the silent instruction of vodka bottles and random generators pointing her to a random pair of lips or stupid dares. 

Except this time, it’s different. Having grown more since the last time she sat in a circle like this, it feels better to be clutching onto the freedom of having time, of feeling like responsibilities don’t matter, of surrendering the arduous practice of adultism for immature naivety and curious innocence. Perhaps it’s that feeling that gets her courageous enough to crawl onto her knees towards Jungeun when the bottle spins towards the girl for her turn and her phone randomly generates the number telling her to kiss her. Focusing on her lips and pausing half-way between to wait for Jungeun’s lips, Heejin looks for the girl’s willingness to kiss her back, knowing better than to just force a kiss even if the rules of the game were to do as such. It’s instinct to flutter her eyes closed when Jungeun presses her lips onto hers. It’s just as rushed as her lips are soft. (It’s not rushed at all, Jungeun’s lips pillowy and warm against hers). Heejin has half of the mind to recognize Jinsol cheering for her in the back and Chaewon’s high voice joining in and egging her friend on. 

When she pulls away, Jungeun smiles and it’s lazy and natural and the yellow lighting of the room shrouds her in a gentle glow. Watching as the rest of her friends and Sooyoung’s play, Heejin coos at how Yerim and Chaewon share a nervous kiss with blushing red cheeks, laughs before taking a shot of vodka instead of kissing Jinsol when the bottle lands on her. (It’s not that Jinsol or Sooyoung are against the idea of anyone kissing them under the pretense of the game, it’s just that Jinsol feels like a sister to Heejin due to their years of friendship and it feels wrong to even think of doing such—it makes Heejin shiver at the thought).

When Hyunjin spins the bottle and it weens to a stop at the front of Heejin’s crossed leg and her phone announces the number for Seven Minutes in Heaven, Heejin feels her cheeks blush a violent red when Hyunjin offers her hand to her to pull her up. Taking it, Heejin doesn’t have it in her to pull away when she starts leading them to the coat closet by the front door and lets Hyunjin make the decision for them. (She holds on.) Opening the door to the closet, Hyunjin lets Heejin in first before walking in too. The closet is roomier than it looked when Heejin first peered in from the outside. Still, it’s not big enough for the two of them to have their personal distance, the intimacy of looking into Hyunjin’s eyes blanketed by the darkness enveloping them.

Hyunjin’s voice is soft and quiet, fitting the nervous silence pulling them together, “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. We can just stand here and talk. Or not talk. I just didn’t want to drink.”

Heejin giggles and leans her head forward but startles back when she lightly bumps into Hyunjin’s forehead. Hearing her rush of apologies, Hyunjin blindly searches for Heejin’s shoulders, her fingers cautious and gentle to ease the threat of uncertainty in darkness. Resting them on Heejin’s shoulder and running her thumb over the expanse of her shoulder, it ever so slightly calms the nerves bubbling inside of Heejin. With her own voice low and quiet too, “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Kissing you. I mean. If you want to. I wouldn’t- I want to, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Kiss me, that is.” Forcing herself to shut up and cutting off her nervous rambling, Heejin leans her forehead on Hyunjin’s and exhales a large sigh carrying her nerves. When Hyunjin laughs, it bubbles and it sounds like the twinkling of chimes and it feels like the rush of the wind on a cool breezy day. (Including Hyunjin’s voice, her laugh is also one of the noises Heejin would like to hear until she no longer could be afforded the honor.)

Ever so slightly grazing her cheeks with the pads of her fingers and blindly following the shape of Heejin’s face using her forehead that was leaning on hers as a starting point, Hyunjin slowly lifts her chin with all of the care in the world when her finger settles underneath it. The thumb that softly rests underneath Heejin’s lips is light enough for it to feel like a ghost on her skin. Leaning into her touch and blindly tracing the bridge of Hyunjin’s nose with hers, Heejin’s hands search for anything to anchor her to the present, to not lose herself in her nerves and the adrenaline coursing through her. Finding the loops of Hyunjin’s jeans, Heejin hooks her pointer fingers in them, the rest of her fingers gingerly resting at her hips. Feeling the light breeze of air from Hyunjin’s nose and sensing her lips coming closer, Heejin feels her heart come to an anticipating stop in her chest, her nerves pressed tightly against her sternum. Closing her eyes and letting her senses do the rest, Heejin almost gasps when soft lips melt onto hers. Her knees slightly buckle at the feeling, her adrenaline now rushing through her veins in overwhelmingly devastating waves. Shakily pulling Hyunjin in closer and chasing after her lips when she pulls away, a once cautious kiss blurs into one that is more passionate, desperate for touch and pleasure. In the silence of the coat closet and the slight noises their lips make, Heejin feels a winding emotion building up in her. When Hyunjin pulls away, her hand on her shoulder keeps Heejin at bay and it prevents her from kissing her again. Laughing into the intimate air that laced and tied them together, she cups Heejin’s cheeks, breathless and caught up in the rush of playful happiness.

“Give- give me a second, Heejin. You’re gonna make me pass out if you keep taking my breath away like this.”

Heejin laughs too and she squeezes tighter at Hyunjin’s waist. When Hyunjin pulls her in even closer and wraps her arms around her neck, their lips blindly find each other’s in the dark again, and it’s a growing blimp of emotion that glows a kaleidoscope of colors within Heejin. In the flurry of soft lips, playful kisses, and muffled laughter, Heejin understands what heaven is like in the seven minutes she shares with Hyunjin.

Heejin thinks that she could have spent the rest of her night in that closet if it meant Hyunjin would be there with her (preferably kissing her too). But, when someone knocks at the closet door and singsongs for them to come out (how ironic), Heejin knows this.

She really _really_ likes Hyunjin.

She likes her enough to not feel fear at the growing emotion blooming in her heart.

It should terrify her how quickly Hyunjin disarms her and sweeps her away, but Heejin likes how it feels—likes how it feels to like Hyunjin.

~~(Almost shameless and blindingly obvious, this is but one night in the many that Heejin spends thinking about Hyunjin.)~~

~.~.~

It’s almost concerning how easy it is for Heejin to lie. Growing up with intensely strict parents, Heejin has learned how to lie right under their noses, how to cover up her tracks, how to be more believable than the most indubitable facts of the world. She has spent nights partying under the guise of dance team sleepovers, has perfume bottles and Cucumber Fresh scented wet wipes in her car to cover up the smell of weed from being at parties, has a case of toiletries to wash away the smell of alcohol if she needed to.

But, better than that, Heejin has lied to herself more than to anyone else—and if she could count the times she has lied to her friends or her professors about her wellbeing, she might as well keep an infinite tally. (It’s not that she didn’t trust her friends to keep her safe or to comfort her through her bad times, but she hated feeling needy and wasting their time even if she knew that they would think differently. She liked being seen as bright and hopeful, positive about most things in life. If she could fool everyone into thinking that the sun shone through her smile, it would be blinding enough to hide the fact that she pats underneath her eyes with cold water to ease the swelling from crying.) 

Some would call her lies repression, others would call it therapy, but Heejin would call it her sanity. Never lying about her intentions with others, but often lying about how her day bleeds into exhaustion and hopelessness, she needs her lies to make her reality seem better than it is—brighter and more hopeful. 

Yet, despite that, Heejin finds that it is exhausting trying to lie to Hyunjin. Telling the truth just becomes a natural instinct. Having her number from the night that she kissed her, Heejin finds herself spilling all of her emotions over the white light of her phone. Especially when she meets Hyunjin weekly for study dates at the cafe by the library and how Hyunjin’s big innocent eyes focus on her, Heejin can only surrender herself to the truth. Unwilling to tell her lies, the truth falls with ease. 

Without ever prying her open and without ever realizing, Hyunjin easily gets her to fall apart just as she easily gets Heejin to fall for her.

It should concern Heejin how easily Hyunjin sneaks past her defenses and walls, how seamless it is for Heejin to tell her about the grief twisting in her heart and the stress weighing on her shoulders. If she could put a finger on what it was about Hyunjin that evoked honesty from her, Heejin would. It isn’t until Hyunjin invites her over one night to watch a movie with her and she catches her reflection in the mirror by Hyunjin’s door does Heejin start to understand. It’s a realization that doesn’t scare her, in fact, it’s one that puzzles in all of the scattered pieces of her emotions. Everything that is Hyunjin, everything that makes up her heart and the way she carries herself is what comforts Heejin into giving in and surrendering to her, surrendering to vulnerability. (She thinks Hyunjin will keep her safe through it all.)

Snuggled up against her, feeling the safest she has ever felt in her life, Heejin knows that she is falling for her the way one falls into a blackhole of fascination and infatuation. Uncontrollably, almost recklessly, and without a care, Heejin lets herself fall for her. Being with Hyunjin feels like a gleaming cascade of euphoria in the odd dark corners of living. She’s the bright and glowing amber at the end of gloomy tunnels, the sound of intricate chains of arpeggios linking together to make a blissful progression in music. Closing her eyes and sinking into the pleasure of being around her, Heejin doesn’t feel fear at the darkness that blooms behind her lids when she falls even further for her.

Hands tied up just as much as her heart is in the affairs of losing herself in the shelter that Hyunjin’s arms become, it’s a show of a waving white flag when Heejin welcomes Hyunjin into her heart.

Dozing off and into her thoughts, Heejin’s silence prompts Hyunjin to shake at her shoulder and call for her attention. (Usually, Heejin runs an active commentary about the movies that they watch and normally if it was anyone else, it’d be annoying, but Hyunjin quite likes hearing what she has to say about what is going on in the films that they watch). When Heejin’s eyes refocus on the television and she tilts her head to look up at Hyunjin, they melt under the concern shining in Hyunjin’s gaze. Unravelling her arms around Heejin and rifling around her desk drawer, Heejin only watches in confusion. When Hyunjin pulls out the familiar copper circle of currency, Heejin can’t help how it brings a breath of laughter to her. (It’s enough for her shoulders to ease their tension and brighten her day).

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“I’m just...thinking about you.”

Hyunjin’s eyebrows only quirk the slightest, “And what about me?”

Heejin smiles and it’s small and lazy, completely at ease in the security that she feels when Hyunjin pulls her back into her embrace. Normally she would play around and tease her and probably say something about she could hear Hyunjin mumbling her thoughts about the movie in her ear (she really could), but something about the calm lighting of the fairy lights hung up on Hyunjin’s wall and the serenity of being alone with her gets Heejin to tell the honest truth, “You’re amazing, Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin only takes a flash of a second before replying back, her eyes pleasantly taken aback by the raw genuineness generously coating her compliment, a smile blooming from her lips, “You’re amazing too, Heejin.”

Being with Hyunjin feels warm. It’s deeper than the physical attraction from the party months ago when they first kissed. It’s more than Heejin could ever control, more than she could ever describe or predict.

If Heejin really _really_ liked Hyunjin before, she _really really_ likes her now, way past the point of no return.

~

When midterms comes, Heejin wants to crumble under the stress of her classes and it only takes a look for Hyunjin to understand the fragility tinging her eyes.

Sitting down in front of her and resting her chin on her hands, Hyunjin worriedly scans the hunched girl scribbling into her notebook.

“I know you’ve a lot to do and a lot to study for, but please give me at least two hours of your time?”

Heejin knows she should refuse and take those two hours to study, but just as she couldn’t refuse Jinsol, it’s even more impossible to deny Hyunjin. Not when her eyes seem to twinkle and how she carries the purest hope in them.

“Help me pack up and you’ll get three.”

Hyunjin pumps her fist, an exclamation of victory following her. Quickly gathering the books strewn around and carrying them in her arms, she fondly watches as Heejin zips up her two pencil cases and stuffs them into her bag.

“Do you really need two pencil cases? I barely even use one pen.”

Blushing under the teasing tone and lightly pushing at Hyunjin’s shoulder, Heejin petulantly justifies her need for the variety of supplies she carries, “I like making my notes colorful for my study guides. I can’t help that I’m a visual learner!”

Laughing at the obvious offense Heejin takes, Hyunjin slings her arm over Heejin’s shoulder and leads her to her car parked in the structure by her apartment shared with Sooyoung. Dumping the textbooks in the trunk of her car and taking her bag, Hyunjin pulls back the sun roof to her car before driving towards the sea. Driving along Pacific Coast Highway, under the dim street lights with the wind cutting through the gaps of her fingers with Heejin’s hands swimming with the breeze, it’s as if she doesn’t have the stress of three midterms on her shoulder, doesn’t have to write a ten-page essay on the history of music, doesn’t feel the pressure to do well.

She feels free, as if time was limitless and open only for her and Hyunjin. Laughing into the rushing breeze of the wind and holding the girl’s hand over the compartment of her car, Heejin wouldn’t mind getting lost with her, wouldn’t mind taking the long way home, and stopping at all of the red lights if but to spend more time with her. 

Under the dim yellow glow of streetlights that remind Heejin of the first night that they met and how it felt to gaze at her from across the circle and how Hyunjin’s eyes twinkle the same way they did that night when she laughs is the breath of fresh air she needs away from everything.

When Hyunjin drives home, she chooses to miss the entrance of the freeway and instead traverses through the inside streets guiding them home. In all of the red lights that they come to, they are stops that Hyunjin takes to glance at the girl beside her only to find the girl’s eyes already tenderly looking at her.

In the comfortable sound of Hyunjin’s stereo leaking out the tracklist of one of her playlists, Heejin’s voice is a welcomed presence to the pleasant air between them. 

“You know, you mean a lot to me, Hyunjin.”

The light turns green and Hyunjin flicks her eyes towards her before focusing on the road ahead, “You’re a really great friend to me, Heejin. Thanks for letting me steal you away for the night.”

Even if Heejin feels her heart’s dull pain at being nothing more than a friend to her, she feels an even greater pleasure at being good enough to even be considered as such.

Maybe she is falling in love with Hyunjin. And maybe Hyunjin doesn’t feel the same for her or will ever feel the same.

Still, ever so fearlessly, Heejin leaves her heart at her fingertips and lets them wander into Hyunjin’s hands, whether or not if the other girl knows it or will ever come to know.

How true is a love when the conditions of reciprocity define how it is showed? 

Heejin knows this.

She likes Hyunjin in all of the ways possible and nothing was going to stop her from showing it if Hyunjin doesn’t have a problem with it.

Not her heart twisting in her chest, not the doubt of being the only one driving down the two-lane road of loving, not the fear of being hurt in the future.

Nothing.

(Just as Heejin gets lost with Hyunjin for the night, so does she get lost in the feeling of liking Hyunjin.)

She’d rather have Hyunjin at once than not at all.

How precious her existence has become to Heejin is beyond her imagination. How it only took one night for Heejin to fall for her is just as intricate a phenomenon as it is simple for her to explain. Simply, in all of the things that make Hyunjin, Heejin likes what she has seen so far, has a certain hope that there isn’t much about Hyunjin to dislike. Intricately, Heejin thinks that there aren’t words thought of yet that accurately describes how she feels to be around her. Synonymous to pleasure, but also to that of great comfort and security, Heejin thinks that the rushed beating of her heart is word enough for her to understand. 

~.~.~

Like a lovesick puppy who lost herself in her affections, Heejin searches for all of the reasons to make Hyunjin smile.

Willing to act like a fool in broad daylight—even in a busy crowd of people, looking at Hyunjin first whenever anyone cracks a joke to see if she laughs, buying this and that to just get a glimpse of her smile, a desperation to have Hyunjin’s attention creeps up on Heejin. Even playing into her teasing remarks just to watch how she laughs and how her eyes turn into crescents is enough reason for her to react as wholesomely as possible to make the other girl chime out a laugh. (She always does so it’s worth the momentary flash of embarrassment.)

(Heejin likes how Hyunjin looks when she laughs—it’s pure and innocent, playful and genuine. It makes Heejin forget about everything bad in the universe and it’s one of the biggest things Heejin loves about her.)

Even if it’s something as ridiculous as wearing a cat mascot head—from where Hyunjin got it, Heejin doesn’t know—Heejin likes how she can hear Hyunjin’s muffled laughter when she tries to chase after the echoes of clapter. 

(If Heejin saw how Hyunjin playfully kissed the front of the cat’s head, she’d probably collapse on the spot, her silent and hidden desire of wanting Hyunjin’s lips on hers again only a cat head mascot away from her being indirectly answered.

Perhaps, it’s better that she could only see out of the small eye holes provided. Certainly, it saved her the embarrassment. But then again, Hyunjin would probably laugh at Heejin’s body crumbling from shock. Whose loss is it Heejin doesn’t know, but she would risk the shame if it meant Hyunjin would laugh at her silly reactions.)

Carving time out of her week to designate time for Hyunjin, Heejin either waits by her phone or shoots a text asking for her company. Infallibly, Hyunjin’s time is free for her to take. Even subconsciously, her body craves for Hyunjin. Leaning into her touch, gravitating to wherever she is, blindly searching for her hand during movie nights at Sooyoung and Hyunjin’s apartment, it’s as if her body has its own magnet pulling her towards the other girl.

Keenly paying attention to Hyunjin has taught Heejin a couple of things about her. Like her silent but emanating confidence, her air of self-assuredness, and her superficial chic attitude, Heejin is quick to see when Hyunjin is anything but that.

Somewhere in between the beginning of spring break and the end of the semester, something about Hyunjin changes and it’s in how she constantly flips her phone over to check if any messages arrived. It’s how she scans every room that she steps into with watchful observant eyes. It’s how she plays with her hair and fiddles with her fingers when she gets particularly nervous.

“Do I look pretty, Heejin?”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Heejin looks up from her laptop, “You always look pretty. What’s with the sudden concern?” 

“So my hair’s okay?”

Shutting her laptop closed and taking the hands that are brushing through her hair into her own hands and running her thumbs over the grooves of Hyunjin’s knuckles, Heejin has trouble catching and keeping her friend’s eyes on her.

“Hyunjin, look at me.” Waiting for her warm coffee brown eyes to settle on her, Heejin hopes that her own are doing the job of reassuring Hyunjin well. 

(They work, slightly, but they do). 

“You look perfect. Everything, from head to toe, always. You are so beautiful.” 

(Her words do an even better job at settling Hyunjin’s nerves).

“Now, tell me, what’s got you like this?”

When Hyunjin nods her head forward and a little to the right, Heejin follows her line of sight that Hyunjin invisibly traces. Discreetly turning around and finding a girl with dark auburn hair, her boxy smile is the goddamn sun.

“That’s Jiwoo and she’s in my Comp Sci class. She’s so cute and pretty and friendly and I don’t wanna be her friend; I wanna hold her hand and kiss her and all of that romantic shit with her.”

There’s nothing that could prepare Heejin for acknowledging the painful reality of an unrequited love. Looking at how Hyunjin’s eyes bleed with admiration and affection for Jiwoo, Heejin feels how her heart aches a dull pain that makes it hard for her to breathe. Knowing that her own eyes look so warmly at the girl in front of her, Heejin scatters her gaze elsewhere before training them on the point of Hyunjin’s nose, not strong enough (Heejin ignores how she’s also not willing) to look even further at the blatant show of attraction for Jiwoo.

Heejin feels how her natural instincts shroud her in a protective bubble. If Heejin could lie effortlessly to her parents, she could pass a lie to someone who could barely afford her a moment of genuine interest.

Feigning attention, Heejin squeezes at the hands in hers again.

(She doesn’t know if it’s to show Hyunjin her support or if it’s for her to find an anchor in her reality so that she doesn’t lose herself to the bleeding pain in her chest.)

“But?”

“But, she only sees me as a friend.”

Heejin almost scoffs at the unfortunate parallels and thinks to herself, _“How fucking ironic.”_

“Why don’t you go up to her and ask her out?”

“Are you kidding, Heejin? What if she says no?”

“Be brave. It’s better to take your chance than to lose your shot. You’ll never know what you’ll miss out on if you hide away. Maybe she’ll even be _the one_. But, you’d never know if you don’t try.”

(If only Heejin could heed to her own words, but then again, clearly, it wouldn’t turn out the way she would hope—if by how Hyunjin stands up from her seat and determinedly walks towards Jiwoo with confident steps.)

If Heejin weren’t stuck in an endless loop of attraction for Hyunjin, it’d be amusing to watch how quickly Hyunjin deflates when Jiwoo turns her attention to her. She’d probably laugh at how Hyunjin’s head drops quicker than the blink of an eye and how she shuffles her feet against the floor of the cafe. Gone is the usual cool and confident Hyunjin that Heejin knows. Instead, a nervous and shy Hyunjin is left in her wake.

But, as the universe so cruelly planned, Heejin _is_ stuck in that endless loop, all 160 centimeters of her drowning in her affection for the girl. Instead of amusement, it’s the grinding pain of watching the person she immeasurably likes like someone else. It’s the annoyingly incessant jealousy of watching how Hyunjin falls apart at the seams at the simple flash of Jiwoo’s smile. It’s seeing that her own desires will be left unanswered, her affection thrown to the wind as easily as a leaf blows through the breeze.

It’s the difficulty in accepting the truth, in being unfairly angry at Hyunjin for liking someone else when Heejin knows all too well that emotions can rarely ever be changed for—what is subjective—the better. In the chaos of her feelings winding and tangling and tossing together like restless tumbleweed rolling in the wind, Heejin still comes to see the light at the end of the dark tunnel, the same amber light Hyunjin glows.

Whatever Hyunjin needs her for, whatever that may be or whatever it entails, Heejin would do it, get it, be it, do whatever it takes to be by her side, even if she is to live in her unrecognized and unanswered affection.

_“Unreciprocated feelings aren’t Hyunjin’s fault.”_ Heejin repeats it in her mind, tosses the words around until it’s all she can think about, nails it into every crevice of her brain to get herself to accept the truth.

(Instead of unfair anger, all she is left with is restless sadness and realistically horrible hypotheticals playing through her mind, teasing her like a dangling piece of bait for animals.)

(Briefly, in one of the nights that Heejin spends awake thinking about Hyunjin, she wonders what is worse. Was a love that is unrequited worse than not loving at all? Heejin settles on thinking that it’s better to have loved than not at all. Even if she doesn’t love Hyunjin yet, the thrill of being enraptured by her is a feeling that Heejin would never return, even for the peace of being relieved of a one-sided love.)

Watching Hyunjin come back with a beaming smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eyes, it’s enough of a band-aid to stop the bleeding of Heejin’s heart.

Hyunjin’s happiness is her happiness.

Rinse and repeat, lie and lie until it becomes a reality. Anything to fool herself into believing.

(It doesn’t work. But, Heejin lies to herself again to make herself believe that it does. She needs it to. She needs to believe.)

~

Hyunjin brings Jiwoo around and Heejin hates how she _can’t_ hate her.

She’s soft and a beaming light of sunshine, selflessly kind and genuinely personable. It’s easy to see why Hyunjin fell for her. Her charms are nothing short of bewitching and lovable and even Heejin enjoys her presence despite the fact that seeing them together hurts her more than she could deal with on some nights.

But, Hyunjin is happy. Beautifully and happily together, Heejin could only observe them with wanting eyes. She could only watch how Hyunjin tugs Jiwoo into her embrace during the movie nights that Sooyoung and her hold every week and turns away when she sees how their faces edge closer together.

(The masochism of dwelling on that image would only hurt her more and Heejin is already hurting enough as it is, if the hot tears that roll down her cheeks at night is a sign enough.)

Something worse than angry jealousy was the inevitable of longing jealousy and its restless annoyance. Heejin wants to be okay, wants to not cry at night, wants to watch movies without missing Hyunjin’s presence beside her. Instead, she only finds herself watching in envy at how Jiwoo can revel in the security that Hyunjin provides.

Heejin couldn’t even be jealous of what she had if she never really had Hyunjin to begin with, but still, she finds herself craving nights like the one where Hyunjin took her away to give her the breather she needed to get away from school. The desperation to have her attention is still as severe and consuming, if not worse. Except, Hyunjin doesn’t answer to them anymore, her attention redirected to her girlfriend.

Knowing that Jiwoo would become a new and greater priority to Hyunjin, Heejin still couldn’t prepare herself for the sense of abandonment that she feels when she texts Hyunjin only to be left unanswered until the late hours of the day. It’s lonely without Hyunjin bombarding her messages with nonsensical ramblings or random pictures. It’s lonely watching movies without Hyunjin’s arms wrapped her. It’s lonely studying in their cafe without her pestering her every five minutes.

Heejin hates it.

She hates the loneliness. 

She hates how she can’t deal with change. Hates how on top of her heart’s pain, her inability to lie to herself falls short.

Hyunjin’s happiness is not Heejin’s, but she would do anything to make Hyunjin believe so, even if in her heart, she knows that it’s the furthest thing away from the truth.

Gone were the days of warmth and confiding in Hyunjin.

Left with lying straight through her teeth and faking happiness with broad toothy smiles, Heejin is left with what comes after laughter—the tears of desolation and repressed depression that only her pillow and room come to know.

But, what breaks Heejin’s heart the most is when she sees how even Hyunjin falls for her fibs.

“How are you, Heekkie? You look happier than usual!”

Almost speechless as to how successfully her facade has fooled Hyunjin, it takes her heart’s whole energy to smile broadly and lie again, to be disgustingly insincere, “I feel happier than ever, Hyun! And you look happier too!”

When Hyunjin smiles and her eyes slip into the wonderful twinkling crescents that Heejin loves, it’s too true of a smile for it to be fake, “I am happy! Jiwoo makes me so fucking happy—I didn’t know it was possible to be like this.”

Absentmindedly nodding along and feigning another smile, Heejin didn’t know it was possible to be this fucking sad. 

~

The only people that come to see Heejin’s devastation is her cherished group of friends. Jinsol being the first to pull her aside, her eyes are wide and caring as they usually are. Under normal circumstances, Heejin could lie to her as easily as she could read the time on a digital clock, but her heart’s weariness craves the attention, the need to be seen.

“Are you okay, Heejin? And please, don’t lie. You don’t have to tell me why, but I know you better than you think. And I can hear how you cry at night sometimes. Just, tell me if you need me and you know I'll be there faster than you can call my name.”

The moment Heejin’s lips tug down at the gravity of her pain and the burden in her chest, Jinsol is pulling her into a warm and secure hug, her hands running through her hair and her voice softly humming a song that Sooyoung showed her the day before.

It’s the first time in a very long time does Heejin feel safe and seen, no longer invisible and hiding behind her curtain of insincerity. 

When she cries, it feels like lifting the weight of the world off of her chest.

It feels like she can breathe again and it’s all heaving breaths and chasing the air that Heejin has so dearly missed.

When she tells Jinsol everything about Hyunjin, the girl’s eyes are sympathetic, pity nowhere to be seen—Heejin appreciates how Jinsol has almost never given her pity but only the kindness of her heart and her genuine concern. 

Already, Heejin feels less alone in her sadness even if Jinsol only lended her her ear and the comfort of her arms. 

When Heejin confides in Chaewon and Yerim, she’s caught in a hug that smooshes her so tightly that she struggles to catch her breath amidst her laughing despite the tears in her eyes. The next time they spend the night at Sooyoung’s with everyone else for their weekly movie marathons, Heejin is cuddled up on both sides, Chaewon and Yerim nuzzling into every open cranny possible.

So even if it’s not Hyunjin’s arms around her, even if it’s not Hyunjin beside her, Jinsol, Chaewon, and Yerim are more than enough to ease the desperate ache for company in her heart.

They’re not Hyunjin and it’s not quite the same. Still, Heejin appreciates it wholeheartedly nonetheless.

It’s better than the loneliness—anything would be better than the desolate emptiness.

~.~.~

Without ever noticing, Sooyoung and Hyunjin’s apartment becomes a hangout spot for the nine of them. As the year goes on and they all make their own friends, three more become regulars to their weekly movie nights. With Sooyoung’s permission, Chaewon brings along a classmate she met in one of her culinary courses and Yerim brings along a friend she met while visiting the school’s Paws for Stress Relief function during midterms. Even Haseul brings along one of her coworkers that had just moved from China.

Meeting Chaewon and Yerim’s friends beforehand, Heejin is relieved to see that two people close to her heart have their own friends, their own support if Jinsol and herself couldn’t suffice at certain times. Yeojin, Chaewon’s friend, brings out the inner chaos in her and it almost shocks Heejin when she hears that Chaewon didn’t even think twice about scaling a wall and trespassing simply to egg the car of some asshole who followed Yerim home to their apartment. (But then again, Heejin wouldn’t even think twice about it either. She thanks their chatty neighbor who had caught Yerim hastily heading inside their apartment door to escape the looming presence of danger. Being stopped by their neighbor, Yerim welcomes the new trusted presence that unintentionally becomes a bubble of protection, a witness, for her.)

What shocks Heejin more is coming home and hearing the loud high lilt of Chaewon’s voice joined with Yeojin’s husky shouting. Coming in and seeing the food on the stove on fire, Heejin goes on autopilot, finding the fire extinguisher and putting out the fire. Banning Chaewon and Yeojin from the kitchen to avoid accidents like that from happening again, Jinsol and Yerim are left as the sole cooks of their apartment, Heejin herself having trouble with cooking.

Hyejoo, on the other hand, doesn’t seem like she would be friends with Yerim. Yerim, who is the human embodiment of the sun, doesn’t seem to match well with the gloomy overcast clouds that Hyejoo exudes. Yet, when Heejin meets her and Yerim cracks a joke funny enough for Hyejoo to laugh (it wasn’t very funny), her smile blooms like flowers do in the spring. Getting to know her more, Heejin sees that Hyejoo has her own adorable qualities. (It’s the constant hand holding and the babyish whining when Yerim teases her and how bright she smiles when she wins the prix in Mario Kart. Her laugh, too, sounds a lot like the chiming of happy bells and everything good in the world). Then, everything makes sense.

Hyejoo is perfect for Yerim.

First meeting Vivi at Sooyoung’s place in the closing months of her semester, she’s quiet at first. Almost hiding behind Haseul, it takes a couple of drinks for her to let loose. Sometimes she accidentally talks in Cantonese and Heejin can’t understand her, but she likes how free Vivi looks when she surrenders her shy guard and hesitation. Talking to her, throughout the night, it becomes a drunken Korean lesson for Vivi with Haseul and Heejin doing their best to catch onto Vivi’s pronunciation despite her slurred words. It’s a bit of a mess, but Vivi remembers the words that they taught her the night before and she bravely uses them the next morning in the conversation that they have over the breakfast that Sooyoung and Jinsol cook for them.

It’s a bit crowded with twelve people in a moderately sized apartment, but Heejin wouldn’t have it any other way. The more people that came, the more people that distracted her from seeing Hyunjin and Jiwoo cuddled up on the loveseat in their own bubble of intimacy. 

And plus, Heejin likes having people occupying her time and giving her company. It helps her forget about seeing Hyunjin, stops her from replaying the first night she met her. But, looking at the coat closet, Heejin can’t help how she subconsciously touches her lips, remembering how good it felt to have Hyunjin kissing her in the intimate darkness of the closet, how it felt to hear her laugh ringing by her ear, the ghost of her fingers tracing her jaw—how happy she felt in that moment.

If Heejin could forget, if she could stop loving Hyunjin the way that she does, she thinks that the pain of watching her with someone else must have meant her heart felt a joy great enough for this excruciating pain to wrestle and dig its way into her chest in the way that it does.

Sometimes Heejin thinks it’s not worth the pain.

But, when the twelve of them drunkenly dance together in the bliss of Sooyoung’s speakers blasting some song and Hyunjin wraps an arm around her shoulder and laughs freely into the air, Heejin thinks that the way her heart falls in line and spikes with joy is worth the heartbreak.

Hyunjin is worth the pain.

Even through the doubt, Heejin knows.

She couldn’t possibly forget, couldn’t possibly stop loving Hyunjin.

~

Being on the outside of things and watching Hyunjin falling in love with another girl, Heejin is the first to see when things start to change.

It’s Jiwoo’s wandering eyes that quickly turn guilty and how she has to shake her head to bring her attention back to Hyunjin when the twelve are lounging around, the smell of marijuana wafting around like a lazy dance. Following how her eyes linger on Jungeun, Heejin watches with clear eyes how the red in Jungeun’s are solely focused (or are trying to focus) on Haseul. When the movie plays, Heejin sees how Jiwoo steals glances to the right side of the room where Jungeun holds Haseul in the dark, the only light coming from the television. When Haseul kisses Jungeun before heading to the bathroom (the alcohol making its way through her bloodstream), Heejin is keen to see how Jiwoo has to turn away and close her eyes and take a breath.

Heejin knows it all too well. Knows what Jiwoo is feeling all too well. She knows it because she lives it.

How fucking sick is it for such longing and winding unanswered attraction to be so present in one room?

What seems to be two stuck in longing and three left in a blissful haze of falling in love, Heejin thinks that there’s nothing more tragic than seeing the girl she loves, who is none the more aware of her feelings, love another girl who was falling for another who didn’t even have the slightest idea.

Heejin thinks they’re a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

She’s exhausted waiting for the inevitable disaster and she wants for things to be over, for the devastation to hit just so that she can start to heal. She’s sick of feeling this heartbreak plaguing her emotions—the sun has risen and set too many times with Heejin feeling a slowly consuming pain that eats at her chest.

She just wants to feel whole again.

~.~.~

When the summer comes, it’s swelteringly and unbearably hot. So, when Jinsol proposes a bonfire at the beach, there is a unanimous agreement to go. Breaking off into three cars with Sooyoung, Haseul, and Jinsol driving, Heejin thanks every being in the universe for not designating her to the car that Hyunjin and Jiwoo will be riding in. Sitting in the passenger seat with Hyejoo and Yerim in the back, Heejin catches Yerim’s pink cheeks when Hyejoo shows Heejin the video of her scaring the purple-haired girl before leaving through the rearview mirror when she flicks her eyes up at it to look back. When the chatter in the car dies down, with only Jinsol and Heejin conversing over the sound of the radio, Heejin looks behind to see what has made the two girls behind her silent. Finding Yerim’s head resting on Hyejoo’s shoulder and the black-haired girl’s squished cheeks on top of Yerim’s head, Heejin snaps a quick picture at the adorable sight. (Knowing Yerim, Heejin would be able to use it as blackmail to get her to take out the trash when it’s her turn to take it down).

Arriving to the beach, Vivi, Chaewon, and Yeojin clamber out of Haseul’s car, the younger two making a racket and squawking like the seagulls scattered at the sidewalk. When Sooyoung pulls up with Jungeun, Hyunjin, and Jiwoo, Heejin has watched for too long to see that there is a certain imbalance between the couple. Shaking the thought away, Heejin has to remind herself to not let Hyunjin cloud up her thoughts. Today is supposed to be a day of fun and relaxation, soaking up the sun and the cool waves of the ocean, not her usual doom and gloom of unrequited heartbreaking love.

Heejin needs the fun, needs the sunlight to remind her that she’ll be okay because her lies could no longer fool herself into believing. And with her friends beside her, Heejin wants to genuinely believe that she will be able to be okay, that the sun will be enough to lift her downtrodden spirit, that they will be the temporary band-aid for her bleeding heart since the plaster Hyunjin last left has grown overused and worn under the devastation of the last few months.

Not being able to mull over the misfortune of her love life for long when seagulls soar above her, Haseul is quick to cling to her, the two being terrified of birds. Growing tense and yelping at the shadow of birds hanging over her, Jungeun’s screeching and Hyunjin’s loud shouts makes Heejin’s eyes snap open. Making a show of themselves and becoming even bigger than the seagulls to scare them away, Heejin hates how she feels herself fall even harder for Hyunjin—as if it were possible to fall even more. When Haseul shimmies under the arm that Jungeun extends for her and kisses her cheek in appreciation, Heejin only watches as Hyunjin looks back at her, her concerned eyes showing genuine care for her.

(Hyunjin never meant to hurt Heejin, doesn’t even know that she has been for the past couple of months. Never was it in her intentions to hurt her best friend, Heejin’s silent suffering has been met with a loneliness that is left with nothing but her own destruction.)

Helping Jinsol and Sooyoung by carrying bundles of wood and precariously balancing a bag of marshmallows on top of them, Hyunjin has to look beside her to walk, the stack of supplies towering over her. When Jungeun calls for Jiwoo’s help with the blankets and the umbrella, Hyunjin is left with obscured vision. When a pointer finger hooks through the belt loops of her shorts, Hyunjin doesn’t need to look up to find who it is, the mole on the hand being sign enough.

“I got you, Hyunjin. I’ll tell you when there’s a step.”

Looking beside her before readjusting her grip, Heejin’s hair dances in the wind and the sun lights the brown of her eyes.

(She looks beautiful, but she always does.)

Lost in thought, Heejin has to yank Hyunjin closer to her when a biker rings their bell at her, the sound reaching her inattentive ears. (The sounds of warning only seem to bounce against her ears the way knocking on glass becomes muffled). With Heejin’s hand goes on top of the marshmallows to prevent them from falling after the sudden movement, the fingers that subconsciously tuck her hair behind her ears are alarmed and worried, “Are you okay? I tried telling you to stop, but you just kept going.”

A little shaken and disoriented, Hyunjin takes a moment to reorganize herself. Leaning her head onto Heejin’s as a sign of thanks, Hyunjin’s reply is quiet, only meant for her Heejin to hear, “I’m okay. Thanks for saving me.”

“I’d always save you, Hyun.”

(There’s something so absolute about the way Heejin sounds, something so indubitably undeniable.)

(It’s only because it’s true. The whole world could be falling apart and if Hyunjin needed her, Heejin would find all of the ways to leap the shifting tectonics of the earth, swim the infinite distance of the ocean. Even if it could kill her, she would find it easy to throw herself into fire if it meant it would get her to Hyunjin. It’s dangerous and reckless, but much like how she fell for her, Heejin doesn’t know how to control the tyranny of her disastrous impulses.)

Hyunjin begins to wonder if the way Heejin’s eyes dim at the slightest is a hallucination. 

(It’s not).

(How could they not when she knows that she’d jump oceans for her when Hyunjin had her own deserts to cross?) 

~

Setting up at a fire pit and helping Jinsol with laying out their blankets, Heejin lets the glow of the sun’s heat warm her up. Stripping to her bathing suit and lathering sunblock on her (with Vivi getting her back), Heejin takes to the ocean.

Wading into the water deep enough for her legs to be submerged, feeling the sand under her feet pull with the tides of the ocean, and closing her eyes to hear the crashing of the waves, there’s a certain peace that isolates Heejin away from her problems and her worries.

It’s like a breath of fresh air.

Her peace doesn’t last long though, the sound of splashing and the startling freeze of water hitting her chest and wetting her hair. Snapping her eyes open, Yeojin and Yerim are beside her splashing each other, the sound of Sooyoung’s scream following Hyejoo’s laugh when the younger girl pushes a wave of water towards her.

“Look! I’m a waterbender now!” 

“Oh yeah? Bet I’ll be a better one than you!”

Directly after that, Sooyoung splashes a larger wave back at Hyejoo, the shrill sound of Hyejoo’s yell interrupted by the coming of sandy ocean water.

Looking behind her, the sight of Jungeun and Haseul in wetsuits carrying surfboards surprises her, “Since when did they know how to surf?”

Sooyoung, who was at her tail end of laughter, follows Heejin’s eyes and raises her hands for momentary pause when Hyejoo revs back for another splash.

“Haseul barely learned how to this spring, but Jungeun’s been a swimmer slash surfer since she could walk. I think she’s helping Haseul practice today though.”

Watching as the two wade into the water, deep enough for Jungeun to mount her surfboard and help Haseul onto hers, it’s endearingly amusing to watch how Haseul’s imbalance gets Jungeun to fall overboard with her when the older girl’s surfboard wobbles underneath her.

“They’re good together.”

“Jungie and Haseulie?”

Nodding in reply and watching as Jungeun brushes Haseul’s hair away from her face and pats her back before the two begin to paddle deeper into the ocean, Heejin wishes that that could be her in the future. Maybe not surfing, but happy the way Jungeun and Haseul are. Maybe in a relationship and in her greatest fantasies, with Hyunjin.

“Before Jungeun met Haseul, she used to be so frustratingly emotionally constipated. She’s helped her grow a lot. It used to take me months to get under Jungeun’s skin just to figure out what’s bothering her, but now, I don’t even need to go to her when she’s having a bad day—she comes to me on her own. She’s happy. And I think Haseul has a lot to do with it.”

Humming and basking in the warmth of the sun and enjoying the cool water on her skin, Heejin feels peace once again even if Hyejoo joined into Yeojin and Yerim’s mess, Chaewon a new addition to their water fight.

“Are you happy, Heejin?”

Beating around the bush and avoiding the direct truth, Heejin doesn’t bother opening her eyes when she answers, “I don’t wanna lie today, Sooyoung. Did Jinsol tell you?”

Sooyoung shifts in the water and grasps onto Heejin when the sand underneath her gets taken away from under her feet, “She hasn’t said anything, but you’re forgetting that Jinsol has told me a lot about what you look like when you’re happy and I can’t say that I have seen the girl she talks about in a while, Heejin.”

Sighing and breathing in the salty air, Heejin resigns, “I’m not happy, but I don’t wanna die. I’ll be okay. I’ll make it through this.”

Heejin doesn’t need to open her eyes to know she has Sooyoung’s caring eyes looking after her, can feel them past her lids, “Whatever it is, you have me. Even if I’m just Jinsol’s girlfriend or whatever, you mean a lot to her. And you’ve come to mean a lot to me too. So. If you need me, I’ll be there.”

Finally opening her eyes and seeing how Sooyoung looks back to the sea with her eyes flittering around looking for Jungeun and Haseul (who are riding a wave before wiping out), Heejin feels her heart make room for the girl beside her.

Jinsol is lucky to have Sooyoung, to have her love.

And so is Heejin to have her generous concern and care.

Smiling back at her, her heart finds a moment of peace.

~

When the night falls, the twelve of them circle around the bonfire, lit and maintained by Hyunjin and Jinsol. Roasting hotdogs and attempting to toast the buns by slightly butterflying them and resting them on marshmallow skewers, it’s enough for a content dinner. (Although two burnt buns sit in ashy remains, they are casualties of learning curves and skewer modifications). Getting to making s’mores for dessert, Hyunjin sidles up to Heejin, her marshmallow white and untouched by the licks of fire.

Whispering into Heejin’s ear and sitting cross-legged on Haseul’s blanket that she generously donated for the day, “I’ve never made s’mores before.”

Shocked and playfully sympathetic, Heejin puts her hand over her heart, “Oh, you poor soul, let me help you. I happen to be a master at roasting marshmallows. It’s all about being patient and turning evenly. No one wants unevenly cooked rotisserie chicken the same way no one wants an unevenly roasted marshmallow.”

Taking Hyunjin’s hand in hers and hovering it over the top of the fire, Heejin is too swept away in the craft of marshmallow roasting to care about how her heart thumps faster against her chest. Turning their hands occasionally, Heejin only leaves Hyunjin on her own to prepare a plate of graham crackers and a piece of chocolate for the assembling of Hyunjin’s s’more before reaching for her hand again. Cooing at the beautiful golden-brown that the marshmallow becomes, Heejin eyes the skewer as if a deity themself was coming. Quickly assembling the s’more and giving Hyunjin the joy of smooshing the marshmallow between the graham crackers, it feels oddly like the birthing of one’s child.

Watching with attentive and anticipating eyes when Hyunjin takes a bite of it, Heejin giggles at how the marshmallow messily spots the corner of her lips. Naturally wiping away at it with her thumb and licking the sweet stickiness away, Heejin blushes a scarlet red when she realizes the boldness of her action. But, it seems like Hyunjin doesn’t care when she laughs, her hand coming up to hide her mouth. Pretending as if she doesn’t want the ground to swallow her up in her embarrassment and sudden nerves, Heejin excitedly asks for her performance in marshmallow roasting, “So! How is it?”

Finishing with chewing, swallowing, and offering a bite to Heejin (which she does take, the sweet and delectable taste coating her tongue), Hyunjin smiles and Heejin wants to remember how pretty she looks under the moonlight with the glow of the fire warmly shrouding Hyunjin’s skin in orange-yellow hues.

“Master Heejin, Queen of Marshmallow Town, teach me your ways!”

Laughing at the playful innocence and the brightness shining in Hyunjin’s eyes, Heejin helps Hyunjin finish off her s’more before starting another, letting Hyunjin roast this one on her own.

It’s the first time in a while she feels happy—she suckles on the feeling for all that it’s worth, knowing what it’s like to go on for so long without it. 

~.~.~

As it turns out, Heejin wasn’t wrong when she observed a change between Hyunjin and Jiwoo. 

Late at night (or early morning) with Hyunjin being two hours away from her, their summer vacation distancing them apart, the girl calls her with doubt riddling her voice.

“Something’s wrong.”

If Heejin was sleepy before (groggy and insanely deep voice and all), she certainly wasn’t anymore. Quickly sitting up in bed and running her hand through her hair and blinking the sleep away, Heejin can’t do much about how gruff her voice is without the help of water.

“What- what’s wrong, Hyunjin? Do you need me?”

“Jiwoo’s been weird.”

_Oh._

Heejin saw this one coming, just, not as soon.

“She hasn’t been replying to me or Snapchatting me bad pictures of herself. And I know I sound paranoid and dumb and too clingy, but Jiwoo doesn’t _not_ find every way possible to communicate with me without telling me if she can’t.”

Even after drinking water and clearing her throat, her voice is still deeper than usual, “Maybe it’s nothing? Could just be a fluke.”

Hearing rustling across the line, Heejin imagines Hyunjin shifting around in her bed due to her nerves, “Maybe. But, Jiwoo’s been weird since before school ended. She just- she feels so far away from me. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel her getting further and further away as each day passes.”

Heejin knows what it is—knows who is unintentionally pulling her away. (It starts with “Jung” and ends in “eun”). But, she isn’t going to say anything, won’t barge into a relationship that isn’t hers to meddle with, even if she wished for one of them to be entangled with her instead. Jiwoo deserves the chance to be honest, deserves the chance to be a good girlfriend and to end it on her digression. Heejin believes in Jiwoo enough to give her the chance—she has a good heart in her chest and only the best intentions lost in her own fear and confusion.

“Have you tried talking to her? Like, seriously pulling her away and talking to her?”

The silence is enough for Heejin to know the answer.

“Give her a chance, Hyun. Let her know what you’re feeling so that she can change whatever it is that’s keeping you awake at four in the morning.”

Hyunjin sighs and Heejin can hear the relief in it, “Thanks Heekkie. For listening and giving me advice. And I’ll be sure to talk to her soon. I really want this to work out; I love her.”

It’s coarse salt rubbed in her bleeding wound and it hurts Heejin to hear those three words leave Hyunjin’s lips.

But, she meant it when she said that she’d always save her. Even if it’s from girl problems. Even if it hurts her, she’d do whatever it takes to be what Hyunjin needs.

And if a friend is what Hyunjin needs, she’ll be the best damn friend in the whole world.

~

“Heejin, I’m scared.”

Pressing the pause button on the screen, Heejin looks beside her. “We can watch another movie if you don’t wanna watch this one. I only wanted to watch this because Jinsol said it scared her so much that she needed Sooyoung to sing her to sleep for three weeks straight.”

Fully turning her body and facing Heejin, Hyunjin waves away at her laptop, “It’s not the movie I’m scared of. Actually, I'm scared of it. Can we watch something else, please? But, the point is! I’m afraid of talking to Jiwoo. I haven’t- I don’t want to accept the worst case scenario.”

“The worst case scenario being?”

Hyunjin fiddles with her fingers, her eyes downcast, “Us breaking up.”

Clicking her tongue and adjusting herself to lower her head in order to look up at Hyunjin’s timid eyes, Heejin gently lifts the girl’s chin so that she can relax her hunched body at her new position.

“Are you afraid of the break up or Jiwoo leaving you behind?”

Hyunjin seems to freeze, her eyes finding anything to look at that isn’t Heejin, the girl’s eyes knowing how to read her with scary accuracy.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Breaking up doesn’t mean running away. Sometimes, things have to fall apart for better things to come together. And that doesn’t always mean Jiwoo leaving you completely. Don’t you trust her to keep you safe?”

Hyunjin sighs and shuts her eyes in exhaustion, the toll of her doubt weighing on her.

“I, I do-”

“Then, talk to her. If you trust her, remember that she doesn’t have the intention to hurt you. If you break up, then you break up. And maybe you'll both need your space, but I think you two will find your way together again, even if it’s just as friends. If you don’t break up, then you don’t. Then she’ll know what she has to work on.”

Resigning to silence and snuggling into Heejin, her face nuzzling into her neck, Hyunjin’s voice is muffled when she finds the will to reply, “I love her, Heejin. Is it wrong for me to want things to work out? Is it wrong that I’m afraid of what she has to say because I’m terrified of her moving on without me, even if she doesn’t at the end?”

Trying to ignore the ache of wanting to hear those words fall from Hyunjin’s lips with her in the place of Jiwoo, Heejin finds it difficult to suture up the jagged cut on her heart. 

Still, she runs her fingers through Hyunjin’s hair, kisses her forehead because she knows it calms her down, and puts on some cooking competition show because those distract Hyunjin like no other.

“You’re not wrong for loving her, Hyunjin. For wanting her love. It’s hard not knowing how to change how one feels. It’s even harder knowing that you _can’t_ change. So, you’re valid in what you feel—you’re allowed to be afraid. I just hope that you don’t let it win. Don’t let your fear eat away at something good.”

When Hyunjin kisses her neck, something that Heejin knows is genuinely platonic, she hopes that the other girl doesn’t feel how her pulse shoots up in erratic beats.

She doesn’t.

(She’s too engrossed in Gordan Ramsey yelling at the bumbling and unorganized cook with expired jars of food that could date back to what feels like the second world war.)

~

It’s not four in the morning when Hyunjin calls Heejin again. It’s past midnight when her phone vibrates, the startling sensation almost making her drop her phone on her face. Picking up, Heejin hears Hyunjin’s sniffling before her voice.

It’s a stab in her heart when she hears it crack and the weakness behind it.

“I need you, Heejin. Can you- can you just take me away from everything, please?”

Not even asking for why, Heejin stumbles around in the darkness of her room, trying to find her sweats and blindly reaching for a sweater hung on one of the pegs on her wall. Trying not to let the panic she feels become evident, she tries to speak calmly in hopes to soothe the obvious distress Hyunjin is feeling.

“Yeah, of course, Hyunjin. Are you home?”

Hearing a sharp inhale of air and more sniffing at the other end of her phone and a garbled "yes", Heejin knows Hyunjin’s crying, hates how it sounds.

“I’m getting in my car, do you want me to stay on the phone with you, Hyun?”

Weak and falling apart, Heejin feels her heart break at how distraught Hyunjin sounds, “Please. I just, I need-”

Unable to continue, the uncontrollable feeling of crying riddling her to just sobbing into her hands to muffle the sound, Hyunjin hates how vulnerable she sounds.

Heejin’s voice is the only thing anchoring her to the world. Hyunjin grasps onto it like a lifeline.

“It’s okay to cry, Hyunjin. If you need to cry, please don’t keep it in. I know it’s exhausting and stupid and it makes you feel weak, but bottling it up is only going to hurt you more.”

When Hyunjin lets her heart break under the immense weight of how her night has turned out, her sobs hit her like tireless punches, making breathing a problem.

Speeding past red lights on every empty street and anxiously tapping her wheel at lights she shouldn’t rush past, two hours is too fucking far when Heejin wants to be with Hyunjin immediately. Getting onto the freeway and breaking one hundred miles per hour, Heejin feels her adrenaline coursing through her veins. Somehow, when she speaks into nothing, she tries her best to comfort Hyunjin in the only way that she can without physically being there with her, her voice still coming out calm and reassuring.

“I’ll be there, Hyunjin. I promise. In and out, Hyun, don’t forget to breathe.”

When the other girl becomes silent after excruciating minutes of her sobbing and struggling to drag air in, the soft sound of Hyunjin’s even breathing gives Heejin the time to properly exhale. 

Easing her foot on the gas pedal ever so slightly and driving more carefully, Heejin makes it to Hyunjin’s in record time. Unwilling to call Hyunjin up from her much needed slumber after such an exhausting cry, Heejin sits against the wall of Hyunjin’s front door, her phone resting in her lap, her eyes staying wide awake, her ears wary to any indication of Hyunjin waking up.

Hyunjin doesn’t wake up until the sun rises—the sound of whistling birds louder than usual. Looking at her phone and seeing that Heejin’s name is still on her screen—the picture of her at an awkward angle being the first thing she sees in the morning—Hyunjin’s voice is quiet and rough after crying so much and not using it for hours.

“Heekkie?”

She hears a sharp intake of breath, as if startled back into focus.

Equally as quiet and lower than Hyunjin’s, Heejin is quick to reply, “Yeah?”

“Did- where are you?”

Listening to the cracking of Heejin’s bones and the groan that comes with finally stretching, “I’m here. Outside.”

Finally waking up at hearing Heejin’s whereabouts, Hyunjin almost trips out of bed.

“Why didn’t you wake me up when you got here?”

When Heejin speaks, Hyunjin can see the silhouette of her shadow through her curtains, “You needed the sleep and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Opening her door and instantly back hugging her and snuggling into her, smelling the sweet scent that is so innately Heejin, Hyunjin finally hangs up her phone, “Dumbass. I would’ve liked to have fallen asleep with you.”

When Heejin’s hand comes to rest on the ones wrapped around her waist and relaxing into Hyunjin’s hold, it almost feels heavenly to have Hyunjin cuddling into her like this.

Almost.

“What happened last night?”

Heejin can feel how Hyunjin stops breathing for a brief moment, “Can we go inside and talk about this? I don’t want my neighbors to see me cry.”

Turning around and awkwardly shuffling inside because Hyunjin is unwilling to let her go, Heejin has to close the door behind her and she stumbles around trying to lock it.

Finding her way to the room that was closest to her—which seems like the living room—Heejin unwraps Hyunjin’s arms around her and laces their fingers together when she turns around to face her. Wiping away a stray tear that begins to roll down Hyunjin’s cheeks, Heejin doesn’t have the heart to ask again, giving her the time to explain.

When Hyunjin unravels into a crying mess again, Heejin can only tug her into a hug, her fingers threading through Hyunjin’s hair with her other hand rubbing smooth circles into her back.

Even if Hyunjin is crying into her shirt (and getting snot in it), Heejin doesn’t have it in her to care. When the other girl eases away into silence, Heejin kisses her forehead and pats at her back, “I’d go and get you water, but I don’t know where anything in your kitchen is.”

Laughing through her teary eyes and sniffling, Hyunjin’s red and swollen eyes makes Heejin’s heart ache. Wiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks and fixing her hair, Heejin wishes she could take the pain Hyunjin harbors away.

Mumbling and only meant for herself, Hyunjin hears her anyway, “Poor baby, I’m so sorry.”

Shaking her head and closing her eyes, her hands grasping for Heejin’s, “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for, Heekkie.”

“But-”

“I know I look like a lost sheep and a sad mess of tears, but that’s not yours to be sorry for.”

Cupping Hyunjin’s cheeks, she can feel how empathetic and caring Heejin’s eyes are, “I can’t help how I feel, Hyun. Your pain is mine and I can’t help that I’m hurting with you.”

Confronting the elephant in the room and sitting on the couch next to her, Heejin follows her like a chain does, “Jiwoo broke up with me.”

_Oh._

“We had a date last night and I could tell something was off. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to wait for her—I didn’t want to push her. When she dropped me off, she’d normally walk me to my door and kiss me goodbye, but she just...sat in the driver’s seat. And I didn’t have it in me to get out. I knew that something was wrong and I wanted to wait if she was going to say anything. And then, she just, broke up with me. She didn’t really tell me why. She just said that she couldn’t lie to me anymore and that was it.”

Looking at how Hyunjin’s eyes become unfocused, blankly staring at the stereo in front of her, Heejin knows it’s the only thing stopping Hyunjin from crying again.

“I didn’t even get to talk to her and tell her I feel. I was too hurt to say anything. I didn’t want to cry in front of her. I didn’t want to make her feel bad for breaking up with me.”

When Hyunjin blinks and her eyes focus again, Heejin waits for the moment to talk, letting silence dictate it. Finding that Hyunjin is finished with explaining, Heejin tries to find all of the right words, only to find shitty and insufficient ones that would do little to ease the pain in Hyunjin’s heart. (Not that words could heal the aching that it feels anyway.)

“Wanna get away from here?”

It’s exactly what Hyunjin wants to hear and the small smile that peeks at her lips is enough for Heejin to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Let me wash my face and get changed—I feel icky.”

Waiting for Hyunjin downstairs, Heejin wanders around, snapping shots of her baby pictures and cooing at how small she looks. Hearing the pads of her footsteps coming down, Heejin looks up to find her descending. (Even after crying and being broken up with, somehow, Hyunjin still looks so beautiful).

“You ready?”

Grabbing Heejin’s keys and placing them in her hands and taking a quick snack from her pantry for the both of them, Hyunjin seems to walk with lighter steps, “More than ready.”

With no plan in mind, Heejin aimlessly drives around with her windows down, the only noise between them being the songs of her shuffle playing. Ending up at a soccer field by Hyunjin’s directions, the two approach it, one with curiosity, the other with nostalgia.

“I used to spend so many hours of my day running up and down this field. When I was younger, I had this dream of being a star soccer player and playing for the national women’s team. I think I had a chance. I was doing well in high school—I had all of the impressive stats and scouts looking at me. I was even called up for the U-17 Women’s World Cup, but in the season before that, I tore my ACL because of a horrible tackle that went wrong. It took more than half a year for me to heal, nonetheless, get back into shape. And then, I guess I just lost the motivation and drive to keep going even if I knew I could do it. Something inside me gave up.”

“Do you wish that you hadn’t?”

When Hyunjin looks over at Heejin, she can’t seem to find the slightest sense of regret, “No. I wouldn’t have met you if I didn’t. If I had made it, I would have probably given up on school and just practiced within the professional leagues. And if I did that, then, there wouldn’t be a me and you. Just a me. And I think it’s way too lonely of a life for me.”

Laying on the grass beside her and watching the clouds roll by, Heejin affords Hyunjin the space to talk again, wary to what she wants to talk about or explain.

“I knew that I loved Jiwoo. I just didn’t know it was this much. It hurts so much, Heejin.”

Taking the hand in hers and kissing the back of it, her eyes focused on the clouds, Heejin fibs a lie so true that she almost believes it too, “Pain is temporary. Just as temporary as happiness is, so is the pain. Everything will be okay, Maybe not now or soon, but I think we’ll be okay.”

Heejin’s “temporary” pain has lasted for the better part of the year, watching Hyunjin fall for someone else being a great source of it. 

She wants to believe that she’ll be okay. That Hyunjin will be okay.

That’s what matters most to her anyway.

~

Deciding to stay the night when Hyunjin offers the invitation, the two make a movie night of it, snacks and alcohol and all.

While Heejin searches for a movie to watch, Hyunjin digs into her drawer and pulls out a weed pen that Sooyoung gave to her for her birthday, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

Looking up and feeling touched by Hyunjin’s regard for her and her distaste for smoking, Heejin smiles an easy smile, “Since when has it mattered?”

“Since you and I are the only ones here and someone isn’t already smoking, and plus, what you’re comfortable with matters to me.”

Waving her off but appreciating Hyunjin’s care, Heejin goes back to searching for movies, “I’m fine with it just as long as you don’t blow it in my face.”

“And have I ever done that to you?”

Heejin breathes a laugh at the teasing smile on Hyunjin’s lips, “No.”

“Then what makes you think I’m gonna do that to you now?”

Whining at her teasing and bumping into her shoulder, the sound of Hyunjin’s laugh reminds her of how nice the spring breeze feels on warm days.

Hooking up Hyunjin’s laptop to the small television set in her room, Heejin cracks open a beer of the same watermelon flavored one she had almost a year ago. Instead of the usual unwanted memories it brings, Heejin welcomes the happy nostalgia that comes with the night where she first met Hyunjin and fell for her. Heejin can almost feel her lips on hers again if she closes her eyes, the dim yellow lighting in Hyunjin’s room already sending her back to that moment.

Well into their second movie, Heejin is on her third can of beer, a pleasant state of being tipsy coursing through her bloodstream. Hyunjin, too, is higher than usual, the taste of Heejin’s drink on her tongue.

The movie is only background noise for Hyunjin, her eyes trained on how Heejin looks under the white light of her TV screen.

She looks beautiful.

And looking at her, at the shape of her lips, the slope of her nose and the curvature of her cheeks, a curiosity settles within Hyunjin.

“Can I kiss you?”

The question startles Heejin, the abruptness of it almost giving her a heart attack, “Huh?”

When Hyunjin speaks, her speech is slow, a slight drawl following her words, “Your lips look so soft. I remember them being soft. Can I kiss you again?”

Caught off guard, Heejin takes a second to try to think, the alcohol she feels making her thought processes stall the slightest bit.

Hyunjin continues on, her eyes blearily trying to focus on Heejin, “It doesn’t mean anything. I just...want to feel good. And kissing you feels good. I couldn’t stop thinking about our first kiss for days.”

Everything feels a bit too much for Heejin. Kind of like the dreams that she has had before that fool her into thinking that Hyunjin could actually love her. What brings her back is how the real Hyunjin only needs her for temporary relief, but not for the love that she holds for her.

It hurts her, but God, has she missed Hyunjin and the feeling of kissing her. And she wants to make Hyunjin feel good, wants to give her relief after the rough night she had the day prior. Anything would be better than her crying—and the thought of kissing Hyunjin isn’t necessarily the worst idea either. 

Throwing herself to the fire and letting the flames consume her, Heejin edges closer to her, letting the darkness control her senses the same way they did the first time. When Hyunjin cups her cheek and gently swipes her thumb across her lips, it makes Heejin’s heart race frighteningly fast.

It’s a whisper, but Heejin hears it anyway.

“You are so beautiful, Heejin. Have I ever told you that?”

And she has. More times than Heejin could count. And each time she told her, she fell for her.

Whispering back, everything feels so intimate, so secure and safe—a feeling that Heejin has missed immensely. 

“Just as much as I’ve told you the same thing, Hyun.”

Heejin doesn’t need to open her eyes to see the small smile on Hyunjin’s lips, hearing it is enough to know.

“Hmm, then I must’ve told you more than a thousand times then, huh?”

Unable to handle the waiting game and giving in, Heejin almost pleads.

“Oh my God, just shut up and kiss-”

Hyunjin’s lips are fucking heaven. Her memory did poorly at remembering what they felt like, but it worked well enough for Heejin to think longingly of them. And being reminded of it, having her lips melting into hers, Heejin wants to remember every single damn second of this moment. When she feels the timid lick of Hyunjin’s tongue at the bottom of her lips, it’s almost instant how she allows for the kiss to deepen. Stuck in the haze of her fantasies coming true, Heejin doesn’t seem to notice Hyunjin crawling on top of her, her hands beginning to wander. It’s only when Hyunjin pulls away, breathless and searching for air, does Heejin come back to her present. With Hyunjin's hands at the bottom of her shirt, in between deep breaths of air that she takes, she tries to find Heejin’s eyes in the darkness of her room. When she asks if it’s okay to take it off, Heejin knows where her night will go. When Hyunjin asks again later on and once more before the night faded into more, Heejin says yes every time.

If Heejin was going to throw herself into the fire, she was going to take advantage of it.

With a mind as hazy as Hyunjin’s, it’s a no brainer for her.

She’s going to make the most of the night even if it’s going to hurt her later on—she has spent too many nights missing Hyunjin to refuse her or to stop.

And being with her feels better than words could ever describe; it’s a kaleidoscope of colors, of emotions bursting with her favorite hues.

It’s baby blue and pastel pink and the lightest yellow—it’s the colors that make Heejin think of brighter and better days.

(And even if her heart breaks with every kiss Hyunjin leaves when she remembers it’s nothing more than the mending of the girl's broken heart, it’s the same kiss that makes her believe it’s her own healing too.)

(Heejin wonders if she’ll have to plead when she eventually asks Hyunjin to stay.

She’s not above begging, “Please, don’t go.”)

~

And as it turns out, she doesn’t have to beg, she doesn’t even have to ask because they hook up once more before Heejin leaves.

It’s odd, balancing between the delicate nature of their new relationship and what is normal.

It doesn’t mean anything, but it means everything to Heejin.

When the twelve of them meet up again, Jiwoo stays at the opposite side of the room (glancing at Jungeun the same way she did months ago) while Hyunjin snuggles into Heejin’s arms.

(Letting the news travel through the grapevine, both Jiwoo and Hyunjin are relieved that their friends seem to have caught onto their noticeable change of behavior).

Going on as if that night didn’t happen, Hyunjin teases Heejin like usual—playing around the way she usually does, blowing smoke onto the floor and pretending to be an airbender just to hear Heejin’s laugh. Except, whenever Heejin makes a trip to the bathroom, Hyunjin follows her five minutes after and the other girl has to spend more time in the bathroom fixing up her mussed up hair and hoping that Hyunjin left the mark on her neck at a place where the collar of her flannel could cover it up.

(Just a little bit of it peeks out at the top of her collar, but the dim lighting of Sooyoung’s living room is enough to hide the dark blemish on her light skin.

Still, that doesn’t stop Hyunjin from finding it later on in the night and kissing it when the lights are off, the only source of brightness coming from the TV.

It gives her the shivers and she loves how fucking good it feels to have Hyunjin in her arms again.)

Caught between going back to normal and reveling in the attention that Hyunjin gives her, Heejin feels a different kind of pain—her feelings still unanswered in the way that she wants, but sated enough for it to not wreck absolute havoc, Heejin takes the feeling for what it is.

And for a while, she’s okay with this grey area of uncertainty. She’s okay with being hidden away like a secret, with being used—her desperation taking its toll on her. But, Heejin knows she’s better than this, that she’s worth being bragged about and better than just a dirty secret. She knows she wants to be loved, is deserving of love, but it’s only Hyunjin’s that she wants. And for that, she’ll take what she can get—even if Hyunjin only ever saw her as a friend, even if she didn’t fit the mold of a girl that Hyunjin could ever love.

Heejin thinks Hyunjin is worth the heartbreak, that kissing her and feeling her underneath her is worth the insecurity and the desperate ache for more than just what she is being given.

Because, at least she has something.

It’s better than nothing at all.

That, Heejin knows well enough.

Loving recklessly and with abandon is what gets her Hyunjin and she won’t apologize for it, even if it’s an apology she owes to her own heart—her neediness far too selfish to give Hyunjin up. 

~

Heejin can’t count the times that she enables herself to get lost in her hazy fantasy of a half-assed dream. Too infatuated with the feeling of being with Hyunjin and kissing her late in the evening until the sun breaks to the sky (and falling into more than just heavy liplocks), it’s addicting and it makes any semblance of control Heejin grasps at with her fingers disappear into the air like loose sand falling through the open cracks of her fingers.

Lost in her cloudy bliss, Heejin only feels the pain that her heart festers in when she’s alone. (That means she sees more of Hyunjin—calling her over and letting movie nights turn into blank screens with her eyes looking at someone more worth her attention and time).

It’s not until Hyunjin leaves for her Sociology class after spending the night with Heejin does a reality check hit Heejin like a heavy punch at her gut.

It comes in the form of Jinsol teasing her from the doorway of her room, a teasing smile on her lips, “So, when did you and Hyunjin finally get together?”

Slightly pausing at the sink where she washes the dishes, Heejin can’t help how disappointed she sounds, “We’re not together.”

“Wait. But- the sounds from last night-“

Unable to look Jinsol in the eyes because she knows how disappointed her gaze will be, “We’re just...friends that happen to be sharing benefits together.”

(Jinsol’s eyes are not entirely disappointed, mostly sympathetic to her friend’s suffering. Love is blind and so so recklessly done when a person loses sight of themselves).

“Friends with benefits? Are you- Heejin, are you serious? I think the only one benefitting from this is Hyunjin.”

Already feeling her defenses rise to her protection, the denial shielding her from the truth that Jinsol speaks, “I don’t know what you’re talking about; I think I’m getting a lot from this.”

Leaning her head against her door frame and doing her best to keep herself calm, Jinsol does her best to remind herself of Heejin’s position and her unfortunate circumstance. (She can’t quite keep her emotions in, too sensitive to watching Heejin hurting herself without even recognizing the self-destruction she allows).

“Yeah—a lot of heartbreak! You can’t lie to me and tell that this isn’t tearing you up and killing you on the inside when you _know_ that everything between you two and this reckless arrangement means nothing to her! It’d fucking break me if Sooyoung did this shit to me. So, be honest with yourself, Heejin. Who are you trying to fool here? Because I know you. I know how you feel for her. And there’s no fucking way that you’re not hurting.”

When Heejin turns around, the tears that rush to her eyes threaten to fall at the harsh truth slapping her back to reality. Even if her hands were wet with soap, Jinsol still takes her into her arms and holds her when she cries into her chest. With the knuckles of her hand turning white from clutching tightly at Jinsol’s sleep shirt, she desperately needs something—someone—to hold onto in the violent whims of her heart’s exhaustion from her own abuse. Heejin learns and accepts the truth that it has become impossible for her to lie to Jinsol, the girl knowing her too damn well and knowing exactly how to break her down in the gentlest way possible.

The way she sobs into Jinsol’s arms feels a lot like when a dam breaks—the tears that fall are just as uncontrollable as the violent rush of water. Exhausting herself enough that her knees begin to buckle, Jinsol has to walk them to the couch in their living room, her own heart cracking at the sound of Heejin’s despair. 

Even if Hyunjin never meant to break her heart, doesn’t even know of the pain she pulses like venom into her bloodstream, it’s Heejin’s heart that gets hurt in the end.

In all of the love that she has for her, she holds the heaping equivalent of agony that comes with fooling herself into thinking that Hyunjin could love her back, that the hours she spends with her at night are synonymous to making love (they are for her, but so much less to Hyunjin). It’s the exhausted misery of realizing that she could never hold her the way she that has dreamt of ever since the first night of meeting her that wakes her up from her dream. It’s the harsh reminder that their intimate nights together could never be as lasting, never mean as much, and could never be enough for her in the end no matter how much she lies to herself at night to get her through her silent suffering. 

~

When Friday approaches, Heejin barely alerts Hyunjin of her coming, trusting that she would keep her Friday’s open because for so long, they were reserved only for them. 

Except, when she arrives to her apartment, Sooyoung opens the door with slight confusion painting her face.

“Is Hyunjin here?”

The older girl pauses before breathing a sigh of disappointment, “She uh- she went out with Jiwoo tonight.”

_Oh._

Quickly (and easily) reading the flash of disappointment and dejection that comes as quickly as it goes in Heejin’s eyes, Sooyoung feels her heart’s stubbornness to not let Heejin walk away when her heart hangs by the hinges, “Jungeun and I are gonna go out tonight, would you like to come with us?”

Honestly, Heejin doesn’t want to go anywhere and would rather slip into her bed and cry into her pillow, but everything on her bed smells like Hyunjin and if Heejin closes her eyes, she can even imagine how she looks when Heejin pulls away from a kiss, out of breath and the heat under her skin becoming scalding. (It’s her mussed up hair, her swollen lips, and half-lidded eyes, the teasing smile on her lips when Heejin chases after for more.)

And more than anything, Heejin wants to escape Hyunjin, wants to escape the dangling reminders of what hurts her. Taking Sooyoung up on her offer, it’s no surprise that she drinks enough to get mindlessly drunk, Sooyoung and Jungeun only drinking enough to maintain a pleasant buzz, their eyes watching out for Heejin dancing in the middle of the club that they have come to for the night. And when some guy gets behind Heejin and way too close for her liking, it doesn’t take long for Jungeun to push him away and to take his place when she sees Heejin sloppily throwing her arms out to keep him away from her, the older girl’s strong and protective eyes glaring at him and keeping him away—it also helps that Sooyoung takes Heejin’s front, her eyes equally as scathing. Leaning into Jungeun and resting her hands on Sooyoung’s waist while they dance together, it’s the protection and security that Heejin needs to allow for herself to get lost in the night, to give herself peace away from her torment.

Walking Heejin home with one arm over Jungeun’s shoulder and the other around Sooyoung’s waist, her speech is slurred, her eyes blearily blinking away the bubbles of drunkenness, “Thank you, Sooyoungie and Jungie. For- for takin’ care of me and makin’ me feel safe and loved and important. I miss- I miss feeling like this.”

Jungeun, looking up to meet Sooyoung’s sad eyes, the kiss that she presses on Heejin’s cheeks prompts a lazy smile to bloom on her lips.

“You deserve to feel like this because we love you so much. And you’re so important and we want to look after you, Heekkie. You’ll always have us even if we’re not the ones you want.”

Stumbling around and almost falling, if not for Sooyoung and Jungeun keeping her up, Heejin kisses both of their cheeks before drifting off into slumber. (From there Sooyoung carries her home and immediately puts her down when Heejin shifts awake to vomit in the middle of the street, Jungeun holding up her hair and Sooyoung rubbing her back. Switching with Jungeun when they have to traverse the stairs to their apartment, Sooyoung shoots a text to Jinsol and alerts her on Heejin’s whereabouts for the night.)

When Heejin wakes, she’s in a room unfamiliar to her, Sooyoung bunched up in her computer chair, awkwardly asleep and turned towards her. Looking beside her, a cup of water, painkillers, and a toothbrush are at the table with a note written, _“You fell asleep and we carried you back to our place. Jungeun’s probably going to be awake by the time you wake up so take two tablets after eating.”_ Signed off with Sooyoung’s name and a heart, Heejin feels a rush of gratitude, her heart feeling the love she has for her.

Getting out of bed and resting her forehead in her palm, Heejin kisses Sooyoung’s cheeks before leaving the room and draping a blanket over her. Taking the toothbrush and heading to the bathroom to wash the nasty reminder of last night away, the minty freshness of Jungeun’s toothpaste (Heejin knows it’s hers because her name is carefully written at the cap) is a welcomed refreshment. Padding out into the kitchen, Jungeun is sitting at the dining table, typing away on her laptop. Heejin’s presence is noticed when she sees a blur of black in the corner of her eyes.

Talking with a quiet voice and minding the percussive orchestra pounding away in Heejin’s head, Jungeun nods to the kitchen counter, “Good morning, Heejin. I made breakfast—it should still be warm.” 

Humming and kissing Jungeun’s cheek in greeting, Heejin feels a slight embarrassment for being the mess that she was the night before. Grabbing a serving of breakfast and slowly lowering herself at the seat in front of Jungeun, Heejin’s voice is low and rumbling, unused from the hours she spent sleeping, “Thanks for taking care of me last night. I must’ve been a hassle because I can barely remember what happened after the third shot.”

Jungeun waves away at her apology, her eyes friendly and warm, “We’re your friends, Heejin. It’s what we do because we care for you. Better you go out and come home safe and sound rather than not. Sooyoung and I would do it all over again if you needed us to.”

And everything in Heejin believes in her.

When Hyunjin wasn’t there when Heejin needed her to be, she is comforted by the reminder that her friends will be there to catch her fall.

It gives her heart the strength she needs to plan on talking to Hyunjin again when the girl walks out of her room, her hair tangled and messy from sleeping. Rising from her seat, the sound of late footsteps calls for her attention.

Coming out from behind Hyunjin, the girl’s hair is just as messy, a light bruise on her neck at where her pulse pounds. (Heejin knows Hyunjin likes leaving her marks there, likes feeling the erratic heartbeat against her tongue).

And the peace of her morning and the bravery Heejin instilled in her crumbles away like dry sand falling through an hourglass. Showing a smile that Heejin is familiar with hiding behind, the way her heart breaks and shatters into a million unrecoverable pieces is enough for Heejin to grow tired of how fucking miserable she is.

“Heejin?”

“Hyunjin. Jiwoo. Good morning.”

Drowning in the tense and awkward air of the morning, Jungeun clears her throat and closes her laptop before calling Heejin’s name, “It’s my turn for groceries this week, wanna come with me?”

It’s an out and Heejin takes it with greedy hands like a lifesaver thrown to salvage her from the tumultuous storms of the sea.

Shopping with Jungeun in the cold section of the frozen foods, Heejin shivers and rubs her arms. The subconscious arm that Jungeun hangs over her shoulder before rubbing her warm hands against her arms to create friction is the little reminder that Heejin needs to stay strong and move on—to be honest with herself and with others.

She may want Hyunjin with every fiber of her being, but she needs to move on, needs to find herself again and begin to love with clear and conscious eyes—needs to gain back her control because for so long she has loved so recklessly and uncontrollably. 

~.~.~

Honesty is a harrowing thing when Heejin has been lying for so long.

Sitting in front of Hyunjin and keeping her hands tucked under her thighs to prevent them from reaching out for her the way Heejin knows she wants to, Heejin tries to keep her eyes glued to Hyunjin’s, tries to maintain and respect the intimacy between them even if fear is crawling up her throat with prickly thorns.

“I need to tell you something, Hyunjin. But, first, I need to apologize. I’ve been lying to you and I’m sorry. You deserve to know the truth. Even if it fucking terrifies me to even be sitting here with you. I love you, Hyunjin. More than a friend. I’ve always loved you as more than a friend. I’ve been letting you hurt me, even if I know it’s not in your intention to. And I’m sorry for not being brave enough to tell you that you are—to give you the sign to stop when I needed you to. It’s not an excuse, but you deserve to know that I’m sorry for clinging onto this image of you that isn’t you at all. I lied to myself, to you, to make myself believe that you could love me. But, I am trying to be strong and I am trying to be brave. It’s okay that you don’t love me back; I could never expect that of you even if I wish for it every night. And I’m getting better at making the lines clearer for me. I can be your friend without ever expecting more or needing more, but if you let me- if you let me hope for more, I will. Because I would love to be loved by you. But, more than anything, I love having you in my life and being in yours even if that’s just as friends—having you is better than not having you at all.”

Heejin expects that she would be the one to cry, but the tears that come to Hyunjin’s are a surprise. When they roll down to their cheeks, the hands that Heejin tucked away are quick to catch them before they fall to the floor, her sleeves wiping them away.

“I’m sorry. I- I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

When Hyunjin cries even more, Heejin can’t just sit there and watch, pulling her into a hug and patting her back. When Hyunjin talks through her tears, her voice is plagued with pain, disappointment and shame clouding her eyes, “I’m sorry, Heejin. I’m so fucking sorry for hurting you for so long. I’m sorry I couldn’t see it. And for forcing you into sleeping with me. I’ve been so fucking blind to you that I couldn’t even see you were suffering right in front of me. As your friend, I should have known. I should have been there for you the way that you’ve always been there for me. And I wish I could love you back; I wish I could because being loved by you feels like being on top of the fucking world and you deserve to feel the same and I’m sorry that I can’t be who you deserve.”

Brushing her hand through her hair, her voice is a gentle coo, assuaging Hyunjin’s storm of emotion, “Oh Hyun, you never forced me into anything. I wanted- I wanted to be with you that night and every other single night that we were together. Never did I feel like you were forcing me into anything I didn’t want to do. Give yourself more credit—you cared for me to the best that you could and that’s all that I’ll ever ask of you. I can’t ask you to love me, but I can ask for you to stay, to care for me in the way that you have always done before. Just, this time, without the blurred lines or the lies. Only honesty from here on out, if I’m all that to you, I'll be here with everything on the table for you to see because you deserve to know.”

When Hyunjin nuzzles into her and plays with the hand holding hers, she has to stop herself from kissing Heejin’s cheeks, wary of how her affection could mean something, “I want to stay. I want you to stay. We can work on us and we can get better together because I don’t wanna let you go. You mean too much to me for me to just let you disappear. Even if it’s different to how you want, you’re still everything to me and I promise I’ll be honest with you too. You deserve my honesty.”

~

Hyunjin keeps her promise. Ever so truthful, she asks Heejin to set the boundaries for her, to let her know what is okay to do and what is not.

With holding hands and hugging in the clear, Hyunjin almost lies but relents on how she’ll miss snuggling up to her during their movie nights. But, like Heejin promised too, she is as equally honest.

_“Maybe later on, but right now, I don’t think I can do it.”_

And Hyunjin respects it—she understands that Heejin needs the clear cut lines to protect her heart from hurting anymore.

And even if her arms feel empty without Heejin being in them, looking at her from across the room is enough to get her through the night.

More importantly though, Hyunjin is being honest with herself and she gives herself the time and space she needs to move on from Jiwoo. Only having that one night (and awkward morning with Heejin) being the only time where she regressed and slept with Jiwoo to satisfy each other’s longing loneliness (hers being Jiwoo and Jiwoo’s being the tragedy of her affection for Jungeun), Hyunjin makes sure to apologize for her behavior and to ensure an end to their relationship.

If she wanted to move on, she couldn’t afford Jiwoo the time of the day the way she used to. No longer using Heejin’s warm body as a buffer for her bad nights, she calls her on the phone when her thoughts become too much. Heejin talks about nothing and everything, sings random songs that pop into her head, whines about school, tells stories about Chaewon, Yerim, Hyejoo, and Yeojin making a racket to stress Jinsol out. It’s different, not being under her, but Hyunjin likes it nonetheless.

The sound of Heejin’s voice lulls her to sleep.

It takes a while for Hyunjin to be okay, but she gets there. Finally able to sit beside Jiwoo without wanting the ground to suck her into an empty abyss, Hyunjin is able to look at her without feeling her heart’s rapid thumping against her chest.

It’s one of those nights where Sooyoung is blasting songs on their stereos and the twelve of them are dancing, alcohol or weed (or both) streaming through their veins. It’s Haseul, Sooyoung, and Jinsol’s last month of school before graduating and everything feels too nostalgic. Growing beside Sooyoung and spending the majority of her years with her, Hyunjin wants to remember how she looks when Jinsol twirls her around and dips her playfully, kissing her enough to leave her breathless under the dim yellow lights of their living room. So in love and brimming with happiness, Hyunjin wants to remember the girl that got her through her school years and gave her advice when she needed it.

Finding Haseul and Jungeun dancing together, Haseul’s arms around her, Hyunjin feels her heart’s greatest sympathy for Jiwoo.

Jungeun and Haseul are going to last. That, Hyunjin is more sure of than the sum of two and two being four. Hyunjin can only hope that Jiwoo will be okay, that she will be able to move on.

Vivi, caught in a circle with the younger tail end of their friend group, it’s clear to see how much the girls surrounding her love her, their eyes beaming with adoration and respect. In Vivi’s eyes too, there is an unbreakable sheen of love and care for them.

Squeezing on the hand holding hers and focusing on how pretty Heejin looks under the warm lighting shrouding her in a heavenly glow, Hyunjin knows she’s where she is supposed to be.

Wherever Heejin is, she should be there too.

~

It was only inevitable that Hyunjin falls for Heejin.

Now, in the patient clicking of time, Hyunjin finds all of the reasons to love her.

It’s how her eyes crinkle when she smiles, the mole by her eyes, how she so passionately loves music and dance, how she looks for the best in everything even if a gloom looms around. 

It’s how Heejin fearlessly loves her. Still so loyally committed to her and steadfast in her love, Hyunjin never has to doubt a thing when it comes to her. Trusting her with her heart and taking comfort in the shelter that Heejin becomes for her, Hyunjin feels herself loving again.

Just as fearlessly, just as sincerely.

She loves Heejin. She loves her so much that it’s all that she can think of at night.

Calling Heejin up sometime before midnight and already zipping up her jeans, she picks up her keys and wallet before heading over to Heejin’s apartment. Waiting for her at her door with a lazy smile and leading her to her car and opening the passenger side door open for her, Hyunjin drives towards the beach, content with parking at the street and lounging at the grass area before sand becomes the ground to walk on. Listening to how the waves crash on the shore and the chirping of grasshoppers, Hyunjin can faintly see Heejin under the yellow glow of streetlights.

She doesn’t need the lights to know that Heejin looks beautiful. Almost like how Heejin fell for her in the dark of the closet almost two years ago, Hyunjin falls for her under dim yellow lights. All the same, it’s the feeling of loving that remains the same, if not heightened, especially for Heejin.

“I promised you that I’d be honest.”

Heejin nods, her eyes closed to focus on the sound of the sea, “Yes, you did promise that.”

“And I want to be honest with you right now. I’m falling in love with you, Heejin. I think I’ve been falling for a while now.”

Snapping her eyes open at Hyunjin’s confession, Heejin’s arm almost buckles under her weight at the eve of an unexpected surprise.

“I used to want to hide away from everything when things got too much, but when I’m with you, you make me want to stay and you give me the strength to follow through, even if I know I’m going to end up absolutely exhausted. I love being around you. I love hearing your laugh—all I wanna do is make you smile. I love knowing that you love me. I love waking up to your dumb texts and I love hearing you sing me to sleep. I love how you look out for me, for others. I love how selfless and giving you are. Everything that you are, I love it. And all I want to do is be beside you for as long as you’ll have me.”

When Heejin cups Hyunjin cheeks and runs her eyes over the countenance of her face, the gentle and easy smile tugging at her lips and the warm and soft eyes lovingly gazing at her gives her a feeling unrivaled to anything she has ever felt before. Too true and too good to be a dream, Heejin knows that this is real, that Hyunjin loves her because she has felt it too in the weeks that have passed by.

Better than the feeling of being under her, better than the feeling of Hyunjin’s lips on hers in the dark coat closet of her apartment, better than the feeling of holding Hyunjin to sleep, knowing that she loves her back is a shining and shimmering cascade of breathlessly wonderful emotions.

Wherever Hyunjin is, that’s where Heejin is meant to be.

And wherever Heejin is, Hyunjin is there too.

Like the love that links them together, it’s an emotion that ties them together like the red string of fate.

It’s undeniable.

Much like how Heejin loves Hyunjin and how Hyunjin has come to love her back, they are inevitable—invincible—their hearts so irrevocably in love.

They are undeniable.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> as always, thank you for reading. i appreciate all of the feedback given to me even if i don't say anything back. i promise that they mean the world to me and give me the motivation to chug along!!
> 
> i also hope that you listen to the entirety of this album if you haven't yet at some point (although i did use most of the tracks w a special appearance of a b side track). if you like it, tell me about it, i'll be more than enthused to talk about the pURE GENIUS of this album!!!!
> 
> reach me @twinklingsana on twitter and my cc if you wanna :D


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